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Re: The real source of our problems....

Originally Posted by Rainman05

I agree with this but the issue is that military spending is not the real source of the problem. It is one of the sources for the problem, but the real source is something else... big banks and wall street bailouts, failed medicare programs and a failed social security program for the masses.

The REAL source of the problem is having expenditures greater than income. Our politicians mouths write checks that our citizens' asses can't cash. The wars are one of the many many sources we have contributing to our debt, but certainly not all.

Originally Posted by LowDown

I've got to say that it is shadenfreudalicious to see the rich and famous fucquewads on the coast suffering from the fires.

That being said.. if you would solve the big banks problem and Wall street... you would have virtually only 33% of the debt the US is in now. I mean it.

What is missing from a lot of these posts is how much of social security coosts are wasted. Or, another example, with the big bank bailouts there is a cost of not bailing them out. I'm a retired design engineer so when I was describing problems to peers where costs were an issue I had to describe in detail losses and gains in what happened and what would happen. Otherwise it's just assumptions.

Re: The real source of our problems....

Originally Posted by OhIsee.Then

What is missing from a lot of these posts is how much of social security coosts are wasted. Or, another example, with the big bank bailouts there is a cost of not bailing them out. I'm a retired design engineer so when I was describing problems to peers where costs were an issue I had to describe in detail losses and gains in what happened and what would happen. Otherwise it's just assumptions.

The problem wasn't the bailout... but the way the bailout was done.

They bailed out the banks and imposed stupid conditions if any conditions at all. If a bank would have been given 200bil dollars of taxpayer money as bailout, said bank should have wiped 200bil dollars off the debt private citizens held. In other words, if the bank had 20mil clients, out of which 10mil had debts, each one of those citizens should have been 20k less in debt from the debt they owed the bank. Moreover, their credit should have also been frozen as if they had the 20k $ debt... so they wouldn't just go about borrowing more money for whatever needs.

That would have been a good bailout deal. I hope it is clear what I wanted.

Another condition that I would have liked to see was the division of the big banks. Take goldman sachs and rip it in 4 smaller banks that would not be allowed to merge afterwards for an indefinite period of time. Divide them how? According to state lines. So for example you would have goldman sachs in the pacific states... jimmy sachs in the midwest, lololoo bank in the south and gigolo bank in the atlantic. Then, proceed to deny each of those banks further expansion outside of their geographical area... so that they would have only a limited amount of capital at their disposal. Therefore, break up the "too big to fail" thing.

Re: The real source of our problems....

Follow the currency and you'll find reasoning for our military exploits.

It all boils down to other countries trying to sell their commodities in other currencies than the dollar. However, when they start doing that in oil...well we can't have that at all.

Iraq did it by switching from the dollar to the euro in oil sales. Next thing you knew, the U.S. government was saying that Hussein had terrorist links and WMDs...that was proven false so then they gave the BS reasoning of "liberating Iraqis." Truth is that we didn't approve of them not using the dollar as the basis of their oil sales. When we went to war with Iraq...they suddenly started selling oil in dollars again at a substantial profit loss.

Libya was the same way. We supported the rebels due to what? Spreading democracy and liberating the people? Not quite because Gaddafi was in the planning stages of changing oil sales from the dollar to a new African gold currency called the Dinar...well we couldn't have that apparently because soon after the government was overthrown...the Libyan Central Bank was set up backed by the dollar.

Iran has been planning for years to get their oil sales off the dollar. Now we are using the same rhetoric against them that we did to Iraq. We don't take into account that Iran hasn't attacked another country since the 1700s or that Ahmadinejad is a puppet president. No, we just claim it is dangerous and they will attack an ally and there is no indication that they would do anything of the sort. Iran is all bark and no bite but if you look at the currency and what they are trying to do with their oil...it makes a ton of sense why we want another war.

Our currency is the root of our problems because it is inflating and devaluing by the day. Other countries want to get out of it before it brings them down like it will bring us down eventually.

Re: The real source of our problems....

Originally Posted by sKiTzo

Poll Question: Am I crazy to say that those who run the "military industrial complex" have hijacked our government and are sucking us dry?

Of course you are. Defense contractors make their money in a variety of ways ranging from the development of new technologies to the maintenance of existing fleets. Heck, there are plenty of friendly foreign countries to sell military gear to, as well.

In other words, they don't need us to go to war in order to make money, and considering our foreign policy of the last 40 years they certainly don't need a conspiracy in order to get us onto the battlefield -- all they have to do is be patient.